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Little Knight meets big rook

Dresden,
25/11/2008

Chess between 7 and 83

The little Men-Wei Ho wriggles on his chair in the big venue hall. He can barely overlook the chessboard. Excitedly he talks to his neighbour, but with the sound of the gong which opens the round his concentration goes to the figures in black and white. The seven years old boy is the youngest player of the Chess Olympiad 2008. So he’s 76 years behind the oldest participant, the 83 years old William Hook. The experienced player – it has been more than 70 years now that he exercises himself in the art of chess – had his 17th Olympiad here in Dresden.

In contrast, Ho is right at the beginning of his carrier. When he was 4 years old he started to learn chess. Since then he participated in several international tournaments, but it’s his first Olympiad. “He’s so excited to be a part of our team”, said his coach Wei Po Yueh. But how he reached a qualification for the Chess Olympiad? “He won against the adults in the National Championship of Taipei and is number four of the country.”

Hook celebrated his greatest success during the 1980s’ Olympiad in Malta. At that time the American who plays for the Virgin Islands since several decades won gold for the best amount of points. Since then chess has changed a lot. But Hook doesn’t agree with some actual modifications, for example that a player losses the game automatically if he doesn’t arrive in time at the chessboard. “This rule is ridiculous and has nothing to do with chess.”

The little Ho has his own mind concerning all the things beyond the chessboard: “I like the food and the snow, even if it’s a little bit to cold. And everybody’s nice to me.” Also Hook is very impressed of the tournament organisation and the city of Dresden itself. Especially the opening ceremony was an unforgettable event and one of the best he ever saw. After many successful years he enjoys a lot what the world of chess gives still him: “I just want to have a great time. Besides my fascination for this game and the travelling I take the Chess Olympiads as social meetings. There are people from all over the world, you can find new friends and meet them again after two years – that’s great!”

Men-Wei Ho will face all this beautiful experiences in the future. While he’s still very young and he shyly eyeballs all the people and the movement in the venue hall he puts up a good fight on the board. Though he couldn’t win a game so far, he’s not easily to beat – he did games up to four hours. Not every seven years old could do that. However he has one preference which remembers that he’s still a child: after the game a candy paper under the corner of his chessboard testifies his presence.